


Horse And Carriage

by flawedamythyst



Series: Horse And Carriage [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexuality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock proposes. John thinks the whole idea is ludicrous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horse And Carriage

John woke up with a splitting headache and a sense of deja vu. He groaned softly as he opened his eyes and the familiar bright lights of a hospital infiltrated his vision. Too much of his time seemed to be spent in hospitals these days, considering that his army days were quite a way behind him now.

“About time,” said Sherlock, who was sitting next to the bed and fiddling with his phone. “You were beginning to worry the doctors.” His face was tired and lined, and John privately wondered if it was just the doctors who had been worried.

“Maybe if you'd let me sleep in the last couple of days I'd have woken up sooner,” replied John in a bit of a mumble, carefully pulling himself up into a sitting position. He ran through the last events he could remember, checking that everything in his brain was in still place. _Two days trying to figure out who killed that receptionist. Running through an alleyway with Sherlock after the suspect. Sudden blinding pain and unconsciousness._ “He doubled back on us?” he guessed.

Sherlock scowled. “He was hiding behind a bin. He's in custody now, though, and confessed to killing Jane Milhaven. I told you her hair dye would be the crucial clue.”

“Right,” said John, gingerly feeling at the dressing on the back of his head. “What did my doctor say?”

“Just a concussion,” said Sherlock. “They want you to stay over night, then they'll let you go. That's all he would tell me – I think I managed to upset him.”

John let out an exasperated sigh. “What did you do?” he asked wearily, wondering how many ruffled feathers he'd have to smooth over.

Sherlock looked up from his phone to glare at him. “ _I_ didn't do anything,” he said. “They were the ones who wouldn't let me in to see you.”

“Ah,” said John. He'd been following Sherlock around on cases for long enough now to have ended up in hospital several times, and it seemed that every time he did, it was harder for Sherlock to blag his way in to see him. John had had the same problem himself when Sherlock had been injured and he knew just how infuriating it was to be left stuck outside, not knowing what was going on, just because the doctors had declared 'close family only.' More often than not, he'd been able to play the 'I'm his doctor' card to gain entrance but Sherlock tended to have less success with 'I'm his consulting detective.'

“In fact,” said Sherlock, finally sliding his phone away into his pocket, “I think I've worked out a solution to that.” He sat forward, putting his fingers together in a way that usually signified one of his more brilliant moments of genius. “We should get married.”

And occasionally one of his more insane moments. John gaped at him. “Married?” he repeated. “Sherlock, don't be ridiculous.”

“I'm not,” insisted Sherlock. “It's the logical thing to do. Your husband would always be allowed into your hospital room.”

“I'm sure there's an easier way,” said John, trying to remain rational. “A solicitor could probably draw us up forms that say we count as each other's next-of-kin without having to resort to something so dramatic.”

“There are other reasons,” said Sherlock. “Spouses get all sorts of special dispensations, don't they? Tax breaks and so on – you were moaning about your taxes only the other day.”

“I'm not getting married just to make my taxes lower,” protested John.

Sherlock carried on as if he hadn't heard him. “And we'd also be immune to having to give testimony against each other. You always get so tetchy when I break the law.”

“Sherlock, you can't possibly be serious about this!” interrupted John. “We can't get married!”

Sherlock frowned at him. “Why not?”

John stared at him, not sure where to start. “We're not in a relationship,” he said. “We're just friends.”

“Friendship is a relationship,” said Sherlock.

“It's not the same thing!” insisted John, beginning to wonder if he'd damaged his brain more seriously than he'd thought and was hallucinating this whole conversation. Maybe he was still lying unconscious in that alleyway. “It's not the kind of relationship that ends with marriage.”

“Why not?” asked Sherlock. “Last month, when you were haranguing me about my health, you said I should take better care of myself because you wanted someone to bicker with in the old people's home. A desire to grow old together – that's part of marriage. We live together, we work together, we enjoy each other's company more than we enjoy anybody else's; there's a whole list of reasons if you'd just open your eyes and see them.”

“There's more to marriage than that,” said John, trying to sound firm but unable to control the note of rising hysteria in his voice. His head was still swimming, he could feel nausea rolling around his stomach, he ached all over and he just wasn't able to deal with this latest example of Sherlock's disconnection with most normal social values in the calm manner he usually managed.

“You mean sex,” said Sherlock. “You know I've no interest in that kind of thing, and I don't care who you sleep with. Marriage wouldn't mean you'd have to give up your women.”

“My women?!” repeated John incredulously.

“And,” allowed Sherlock begrudgingly, “if you ever manage to find one that you can stand being with for longer than four months and decide you want to throw your life away on her, we can always get a divorce.” He paused and added thoughtfully, “If I approve of her, obviously.”

“Sherlock!” hissed John sharply. “You're being insane – you've misinterpreted marriage completely!”

“Have I?” asked Sherlock, his jaw tensing angrily. “For centuries it was considered a way to form an alliance, or a business transaction, not the wishy-washy, over-romanticised rubbish that it's descended into today.”

“If it's wishy-washy over-romanticised rubbish, why do you want to enter into it?” said John, his head starting to pound as he sat up further to argue the point with Sherlock.

“It would be different with us,” said Sherlock as if it was as obvious as the difference between a bus driver's cuffs and a train driver's.

“For God's sake!” exclaimed John, losing his temper entirely. “We can't get married just because you want access to my hospital rooms – it's ridiculous! You're not...you're not human!”

Sherlock's face went white. “If that hasn't stopped you being friends with me, I don't understand why it means we can't marry,” he said. “You're just not thinking about it correctly.”

“ _I'm_ not thinking correctly?!” said John, just as the door swung open and a doctor entered with a glare at them both.

“What is going on in here?” he demanded. “Mr. Holmes, when I agreed to let you in, it wasn't so that you could rile my patient up. He needs his rest.”

Sherlock stood up and swept his coat on. “I was just leaving,” he said in bitten-off tones. “I think it's clear just how welcome I am here.”

He strode for the door and John sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He usually tried to remain patient with Sherlock's more extreme demands and eccentricities and talk him down from them carefully, because he knew that he was the only person who could genuinely hurt Sherlock's feelings, but this one had blind-sided him at a difficult time, and now he was regretting some of the things he'd said.

“Sherlock,” he said tiredly. “Tell me – why do you really want to do this? I can't believe you care about our taxes.”

Sherlock paused in the doorway but didn't look back. “I had to call Mycroft, John,” he said in a low voice. John winced. He knew how little Sherlock liked relying on his brother for anything. “Just to see you.” He put his hand on the door and added, in an even quieter voice. “And I don't want you to leave me.”

He pushed the door open without waiting for an answer, so that John had to call after him. “I'm not going to leave!”

Sherlock's movements hesitated for the tiniest fraction of a second, then he was gone.

“Well,” said the doctor disapprovingly, “I hope that was worth having out now, while your health is in such a fragile state.”

John leaned back with a sigh. “I don't have any idea what that was about.”

 

****

 

He was allowed to go home the next afternoon, with strict instructions to come back the minute anything seemed wrong. Sherlock hadn't been back to the hospital since his dramatic exit the previous day, so John made his way home to Baker Street alone.

When he got in, Sherlock was lying on the sofa, wearing his dressing gown and frowning at the ceiling.

“I'm back,” said John.

“I can see that,” said Sherlock sharply, not looking at him. “My mind hasn't yet atrophied to such a state that I can't tell whether you are here or not.”

Still annoyed then. John sighed. “Are you going to sulk about this for long?”

Sherlock stood up and glared at him. “I do not sulk,” he said as if John had accused him of murder, or of watching Big Brother. He swept his dressing gown around himself and retreated to his room, slamming the door behind him with a bang.

John rubbed his hand over his face and went to make some tea.

Several hours later, Sherlock was still hiding in his room when Mrs. Hudson came upstairs to offer them some dinner.

“Just this once,” she said. “As you've been in the hospital and all - I'm not your housekeeper.”

“That would be lovely,” said John with relief. “We'll be down in a few minutes.”

He knocked on Sherlock's door after she'd left. “Sherlock?” he called. “Mrs. Hudson's offered us dinner, are you coming?”

There was a deafening silence from behind the door.

“I highly doubt you've eaten properly in days,” he said. “A meal would make you feel better.”

“If you're not going to marry me,” came Sherlock's muffled voice, “stop nagging me like a wife!”

John scowled at his door, then went downstairs on his own.

“Sherlock's not coming,” he told Mrs. Hudson, who tutted.

“In one of his moods, I suppose,” she said knowingly.

John settled down at the table. “He wants us to get married,” he said, wanting to share it with someone who'd at least understand why it was so completely insane.

Mrs. Hudson's face brightened. “Oh, that'll be nice,” she said, setting a plate heaped with casserole in front of John. “It's been a while since I've been to a wedding. I'll have to get a new hat.”

John stared at her. “We're not together,” he pointed out. She must know that – she lived below them, she'd met most of John's girlfriends at one time or another and she knew Sherlock as well as anyone who wasn't John, including his opinions on romance and sex.

“Nonsense,” she said, sitting herself down. “You're always together. I hardly ever see one of you without the other.”

“No,” said John, “I meant we're not _together_ together. He wants us to get married as friends.”

“Oh, I know you're not sleeping together,” said Mrs. Hudson, settling into her food. “The ceiling's awfully thin, you know, I'm sure I'd have heard that. Still, Sherlock's not like other people, is he?”

“Definitely not,” said John with feeling, taking a bite of his own casserole. It was amazing, just as Mrs. Hudson's cooking always was.

“He was so lonely when I first knew him,” she mused. “All wrapped up in pretending he liked being the only one who understood what he was talking about.”

“He still is, most of the time,” John pointed out.

“Oh, I know,” said Mrs. Hudson. “But now he has someone to look at when he's brilliant, someone who'll smile back at him.”

John shook his head. “That doesn't mean we should get married,” he said.

“When you first moved in,” she continued, “he'd only sign a month-long lease. He said you'd probably be gone long before a month was up. It was ten months before he signed the year one.”

“Marriage is a little drastic as a way to prove I'm not going to abandon him,” John pointed out. “We're friends, it's not-” he broke off, not sure how to finish that thought. 'Not the done thing'? Nothing he and Sherlock did was 'the done thing'.

“You're not like any pair of friends I've ever known,” Mrs. Hudson observed mildly. “It's essential to marry the most important person in your life, you know – I married the best-looking, and look how that ended. Have you ever thought about what Sherlock would be like if he was in a 'real' relationship? He wouldn't be having sex then, either.”

John thought about that for a moment, then shook his head again. “He'd at least inform the other person,” he said.

“Well, it sounds as if he just has,” she said. “Eat up, dear, there's bread-and-butter pudding for after.”

John gave up and turned the conversation to Wendy-from-the-book-club's problems with her daughter. It was much easier on his still-throbbing head to hear gossip about people he'd never met than to try and unravel the intricacies of Sherlock's psyche.

 

****

 

Sherlock stayed shut in his room all night. John sat in their sitting room with the telly on, wondering exactly how he was meant to get through to him – and Mrs, Hudson, apparently – that marriage was out of the question.

The next morning, Sherlock was lying on the sofa, still in his dressing gown, when John came down for breakfast.

“Tea?” John offered.

“If it's not too much trouble,” said Sherlock, still sounding peeved. John wondered how long it was going to take for him to get over this – probably just until the next case distracted him. He started to hope that Lestrade would text today, despite the fact that he really needed a bit of rest before he was dragged all over London again.

Lestrade didn't text, though, and Sherlock spent the next few days in one of his huffs, barely moving from the sofa. John tried to cajole him out of it, asking him if he wanted to go out to dinner or down to the morgue to do something unpleasant to a corpse, but Sherlock maintained his wronged attitude despite John's best attempts. It was with considerable relief that he returned to work, glad to get out of the prickly atmosphere inside the flat even if it meant having to reassure Mrs. Hardridge for the fifteenth time that she didn't have bird flu.

On his lunch break, Sarah came in looking puzzled. “I think this is for you,” she said, holding out her mobile. John took it and glanced at the message.

 _JW, we need to talk. Car will pick you up outside WHS Smith's, 10 mins. MH._

John let out a long sigh and gave Sarah an apologetic look. “I'm sorry,” he said, deleting the message out of a paranoia he'd never used to have before he met either Holmes and then passing the phone back. “I'll have to go, but I shouldn't be too long.”

Sarah frowned. “It's not dangerous, is it?” After their brief affair had fizzled out – mostly under the strain of John's preoccupation with Sherlock and his cases, but not helped by Sarah's lack of patience with the string of dangerous situations he'd kept finding himself in – they'd settled into a comfortable work-based friendship, but John knew she still regarded his involvement in these sorts of things as something he should have grown out of.

“Probably not,” said John, putting on his coat. “It's just Sherlock's brother.”

Her frown deepened. “He texts your work colleague rather than you?”

John shrugged. “He's Sherlock's brother,” he repeated. “You were expecting him to be normal?”

“Ah, true,” she said.

“I'll be back as soon as I can,” said John and left.

WHS Smith's was just around the corner from the practice and a large black car pulled up in front of him just as he arrived there. Mycroft's latest PA was inside, pre-occupied with her phone, but John didn't bother acknowledging her. Their faces tended to change almost as often as their names, and he'd given up being friendly when the fifth one had looked at him as if he was a worm simply for asking after their day.

The car took him to an abandoned house somewhere in Southwark and Mycroft was waiting inside for him, sitting at a desk that had clearly been brought inside just for this meeting.

“Good afternoon, Doctor Watson,” he said.

John sighed and sat down across from him. “Do you really need to be so cloak-and-dagger?” he asked. “I'd respond just the same to a text asking me to meet you in a pub.”

“Would you?” asked Mycroft, twitching an eyebrow as if in disbelief. “Well, I wanted to keep this meeting a secret from Sherlock for as long as possible.”

“Which is until I next see him and tell him,” John pointed out. Or until he deduced it, which would probably happen before John could even open his mouth.

“Every moment that passes without him throwing some ridiculous, possessive tantrum is a blessing,” said Mycroft. He sat forward, leaning on the desk. “Do you know why you are here?”

“To help plan Sherlock's surprise birthday party?” guessed John.

Mycroft allowed himself a smile. “I rather think involving you in any such thing would render the surprise null and void,” he said. “No, this is to do with another little celebration that Sherlock would be involved in. Your wedding.”

John groaned and put his hand over his eyes. “How the hell did you- no, wait, I don't think I need to hear just how much privacy I don't have.”

“Probably wise,” said Mycroft. “I merely wanted to make sure you fully understood the significance of Sherlock asking you.”

“He wants access to my hospital rooms that doesn't have to come through you,” said John.

Mycroft's lips thinned. “Not quite.” He paused for a moment, looking off into space, then focussed back firmly on John again. “My brother does not form bonds with people. When he was in school, he refused to work with any of the other children – he completed every group project on his own, ignoring all attempts to get him to work with others. He works with the police because he must, but I'm sure you know as well as I do how often that results in him going off alone, ignoring them completely. He has had two friendships that I know of – three, if you count Mrs. Hudson, but I don't believe he would. One of those friendships was short-lived and ended unfortunately.” John hadn't known Sherlock had had any friends before him, and was distracted for a moment by wondering how he could get Sherlock to tell him about it.

“His relationship with me is rocky at best, despite all the things we have in common – or perhaps, because of that,” continued Mycroft. “He has never had a lover, nor is he likely to ever have one. I am telling you this to make sure you understand your importance in his life, and the significance of him asking you to form the closest bond that there is with him.”

John had to take a deep breath before replying. “Our friendship is just as important to me,” he said, “but I really don't see why he thinks marriage is such a good idea.”

“You often trust his judgement over your own on matters with far more delicacy than this,” remarked Mycroft.

John narrowed his eyes. “Not in matters of personal relationships,” he said. “You've already pointed out how little experience he has with those.”

“Indeed,” said Mycroft. He opened the lid of a laptop that was on his desk and turned it so that it faced John. Onscreen was a picture of Jenny, John's last girlfriend. “And what is your experience? You went out with Jenny for just over two and a half months, five months ago. In that time you showed just enough interest in order to charm your way into her bed, but were perfectly happy to abandon plans with her if Sherlock contacted you – and not just for his cases. You pulled out of her brother's birthday party because Sherlock was bored and asked you to go to a concert with him, despite the fact that your appreciation of violin music is rudimentary at best.”

John gaped at him. “I really hope it's not my tax money that pays for that level of surveillance on my life,” he said eventually.

Mycroft frowned. “You're missing the point,” he said. “If you remove the sexual and some of the more overtly romantic aspects from the equation, then you and Sherlock are already in a relationship that closely resembles a marriage. Making it official would have multiple benefits, most of all that it would make Sherlock happy.” His gaze turned fierce for a moment. “I do not appreciate the effect that your actions have had on him thus far, Doctor Watson.”

“I'm pretty sure Sherlock would be equally unappreciative if he found out I married him just because his brother talked me into it,” replied John, scowling.

Mycroft let out a long breath. “Just consider the matter properly, without letting your instinctive prejudices speak for you,” he said. “That is all I ask. If you can come up with a better reason not to do it than 'it's not the normal thing', and explain it to Sherlock so that he understands and comes out of his sulk, I will be happy.”

John stood up. “I do live to make you happy,” he said. “Can I get back to my patients now?”

“Of course,” said Mycroft. “You're wrong, though. You live to make _Sherlock_ happy. Perhaps you should consider that.”

John glared at him and left without another word.

 

****

 

He spent most of the afternoon in a daze, distracted when he should have been listening to his patients, hearing snippets of conversation running through his head.

 _“We live together, we work together, we enjoy each other's company more than we enjoy anybody else's; there's a whole list of reasons if you'd just open your eyes and see them.”_

 _“You're not like any pair of friends I've ever known.”_

 _“You and Sherlock are already in a relationship that closely resembles a marriage.”_

 _“It's essential to marry the most important person in your life, you know.”_

 _“I don't want you to leave me.”_

He walked home rather than getting the tube, trying to give himself time to think. When he got in, Sherlock was still on the sofa but he'd managed to rouse himself enough to fetch his laptop. John collapsed next to him without a word and spent a few minutes just watching him, noting the way that he hadn't flinched back from John's presence the way he did whenever anyone else came too close to him. His skinny, pale legs were sticking out from under his dressing gown, making him look oddly vulnerable, and John had a sudden impulse to reach out and touch them, rub his thumb over the bump of his ankle.

“How was Mycroft?” asked Sherlock after a short amount of time had passed.

John let out an amused breath. “Putting on weight again,” he said.

Sherlock smiled. “Excellent,” he said.

John didn't offer any more information than that and Sherlock didn't ask, apparently distracted with whatever he was doing on his laptop.

John watched him for another few minutes, then sighed. “What, precisely, would this thing involve, anyway?”

Sherlock looked up, unable to hide his smile. “Nothing you'd object to,” he said. “I'll organise it all – there's no need for anything fancy. It's the piece of paper that's important, not the occasion of signing it, and nothing has to change.”

“You don't want me to be John Holmes then,” said John, and then made a face at how that sounded.

“God, no,” said Sherlock with distaste. “You're a Watson all the way through.” He managed to make that sound vaguely like an insult, but John decided not to make an issue of it.

“Right,” he said, still unsure.

Sherlock took his arm, bony fingers digging in to his skin. “You won't regret it,” he said. “Say yes.”

John looked at him for a long moment then put his hand over Sherlock's. “Okay,” he said with a dry mouth. “Okay, let's do it.”

Sherlock's face lit up, and he twitched as if he wanted to spring up and do his 'serial killer' dance, but he didn't move except to squeeze John's arm even harder. “Brilliant,” he said. John couldn't help smiling back at him, even as his mind started to wonder how he was going to explain this to everyone else.

 

****

 

Sherlock was as good as his word – nothing much did change, not after the first round of explanations to, and veiled comments from, the people that they knew. Sherlock surprised him by buying them rings, but John found he rather liked the feel of his on his finger, tying him to this strange thing with Sherlock that increasingly felt more important than anything else in his life.

Sherlock took to touching him more – nothing more than friendly pats or the occasional exuberant hug when things were going right in a case – but more than they'd shared before. John put up with it, and then found himself initiating some of it, reaching out to calm Sherlock with his touch when he worked himself up into one of his diatribes, or covering his hand for a moment when handing him his morning tea. It seemed that now they both knew exactly where they stood – the most important person in each other's lives – they could dispense with worrying about social boundaries.

John still went out with women, and Sherlock still regarded the whole thing with utter disdain. The only difference was that when he turned up with a dramatic whirl of his coat, demanding that John abandon the woman he was trying to chat up and follow him to a murder scene, and the woman asked him who he was, he responded with a smug grin and said, “I'm John's husband.”

At which point John ended up with red wine down his face, but he followed Sherlock anyway, leaving whatever-her-name-had-been sitting in the restaurant gaping after them.

The murder turned out to be simpler than Sherlock had expected, solved in less than an hour with a scowl and an announcement that the whole thing had been a tedious waste of his time. John took his arm and led him away to find a taxi before the glares directed at him from the police turned into murderous rage. They went home with Sherlock still sulking, but he cheered up when they got inside, pulling off his shoes and socks and abandoning them on the floor as he curled up on the sofa with his violin, plucking carefully at the strings.

John sat beside him and turned the telly on, flicking through until he found a rerun of 'Allo 'Allo. After a few minutes, Sherlock put his violin down and collapsed against John's shoulder. “I hate it when they're _boring_ ,” he complained.

“The next one will be better,” said John, wrapping his arm around Sherlock almost automatically. Sherlock made a disgruntled noise as his only reply, and cuddled further into John's jumper. Less than ten minutes later, he was asleep.

John glanced down at him and thought that this marriage really hadn't been such a bad idea after all. He pressed a careful kiss against Sherlock's forehead then turned back to the telly, content to be exactly where he was for a good long while yet.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] Horse and Carriage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763004) by [frostina2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostina2k/pseuds/frostina2k)




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